Posted By Paul Kafasis on September 12th, 2007

So far we’ve talked about using Fission to create iPhone ringtones, and using MakeiPhoneRingtone to get those ringtones to the iPhone. Both these articles have received great responses, and we’re working on fixing a couple issues that have cropped up with MakeiPhoneRingtone, so stay tuned for an update.

We’ve also heard from people who want to edit non-AAC files in Fission and save them for use with MakeiPhoneRingtone and the iPhone. Though it’s not immediately obvious, Fission can turn any file it can open into an iPhone Ringtone-compatible file, through the use of QuickTime.

To start, open the file you want to convert in Fission and edit it as desired. When you’re ready, click “Save Audio”. In the Save dialog, choose the “Export With QuickTime” option and set it to MPEG-4, then click Settings.This will bring up a Settings panel which you’ll want to configure as below:

File Format: Set this to MP4

Audio Format: Set this to AAC-LC (Music)

Data Rate: Set this to 128 kbps.This can be set to any value. The higher it is, the better the ringtone will sound.

Channels: Set this to Stereo

Output Sample Rate: Set this to 44.100 kHz

Encoding Quality: Set this to Better.Like Data Rate, the value here doesn’t matter much. The higher it is, the better the ringtone will sound, but it will take longer to create.

When you’re done, click OK, then save.

This will produce a file with an .mp4 extension, which you need to rename. Change it from FileName. mp4 to FileName.m4a and approve the change. Once you’ve done that, you’ll be able to pass it off to iTunes with MakeiPhoneRingtone.

MakeiPhoneRingtone 1.1 and higher will accept .mp4 AAC files and handle them, so there’s no need to change the extension.

So there it is, getting Fission to save any file format it can open into a format MakeiPhoneRingtone and the iPhone can handle. You can now make iPhone ringtones from MP3, AIFF, and dozens of other audio formats.